Lessons Learned

On Thursday, Carson will be three weeks old. During these three weeks, we’ve learned several important lessons. People warned us about some of these, but I don’t think we truly appreciated some of them until we had him.

The first night at home-Coming home from the hospital as a family of three was exciting. But even more than exciting, it was terrifying! You are leaving the safety of the nurses and doctors who are available to answer any questions you have. Plus, you can no longer send him to the nursery at night to get a little sleep between feedings! If I’m being perfectly honest, it was probably one of the worse nights ever. That sounds terrible to say, but he kept getting choked that night and we were both terrified to fall asleep. No sleep + rookie parents + crying baby = stressful 8 hours.

Which brings me to my second point:

During that first night at home, you will cry. I had a really good, all out sob fest around 4:30 a.m. Poor Nick…he had a crying baby and a crying wife!

We may be 29 and 30, but something about bringing a baby home makes you really need your own parents. We started laughing one day because we said we felt like little kids who needed their mommies! But it was fantastic to have both of our moms come hold him so we could nap-and they brought hot food!

At some point, everything will be funny! I’m sure it’s the lack of sleep that made us so delirious, but we have been in tears from laughing so hard-usually at 3 a.m.

You will be pooped on. And peed on. And pooped on some more! This is one of the causes of hysterical laughter. Nick had a special occurrence during a diaper change when a blowout happened and the new diaper wasn’t on yet. It was lovely. 🙂 Carson also decided to grace Aunt Carrie with this treat as well during her first visit!

You might forget to brush your teeth. Isn’t that disgusting?! During those first few days home, I turned to Nick one day and said, “I’m pretty sure I haven’t brushed my teeth yet today.” I expected him to send me straight to the bathroom in disgust, but he replied, “Me either!” We now try to shower and brush in the morning. 🙂

You will be extremely grateful for your other half. I’ve never been more glad to have Nick by my side! He did a ton of the work until he went back to work today so I could rest and recover from labor. I don’t think I changed a diaper until we had been home for a few days! And I haven’t had him for any of the crying sessions during the night until last night so Nick could sleep before going to work. He’s been amazing and I’ve never been so grateful that he’s the man I married.

It’s almost been three weeks that we’ve survived as new parents…and most importantly, Carson has survived US! We are getting a good routine down and he’s actually a really good baby…things just seem worse at 3 a.m. when you are tired. 🙂 Seeing this sweet face at 3 a.m. makes it totally worth it.

Thank you!! I had some issues at the end of pregnancy, but nothing bad enough where he wasn’t getting nutrition. But in the past week or so, I’ve started having some issues again. 😦 So I totally feel your pain, although mine doesn’t sound nearly as bad. It’s very hard with breastfeeding though…I swear that’s when it always hits! Such a glamorous disease, right? Hope you are feeling better!